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Distributed sensing for fluid disturbance compensation and motion control of intelligent robots

Nature Machine Intelligence volume 1, pages 216–224 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

A control methodology for aerial or aquatic vehicles is presented that leverages intelligent distributed sensing inspired by the lateral line found in fish to directly measure the fluid forces acting on the vehicle. As a result, the complex robot control problem is effectively simplified to that of a rigid body in a vacuum. Furthermore, by sensing these forces, they can be compensated for immediately, rather than after they have displaced the vehicle. We have created a sensory shell around a prototype autonomous underwater vehicle, derived algorithms to remove static pressure and calculate total force from the discrete measurements using a fitting technique that filters sensor error, and validated the control methodology on a vehicle in the presence of multiple fluid disturbances. This sensing control scheme reduces position tracking errors by as much as 72% compared to a standard position error feedback controller.

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Fig. 1: The lateral line found in fish is composed of two types of specialized sensory organ called neuromasts.
Fig. 2: Photographs of the modular lateral line sensory system and the AUV used in the experimental data collection.
Fig. 3: Images showing individual sensor fabrication and their layout on the vehicle surface.
Fig. 4: The CephaloBot AUV46 with the distributed hydrodynamic sensing system, shown in the vehicle testing tank next to the wave generator used to provide unsteady sway disturbances.
Fig. 5: Vehicle trajectory and position tracking results.

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Any data gathered and reported in this study can be provided by the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Florida, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Michael Krieg & Kamran Mohseni

  2. University of Florida, Institute for Networked Autonomous Systems, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Michael Krieg, Kevin Nelson & Kamran Mohseni

  3. University of Florida, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Kevin Nelson & Kamran Mohseni

Authors
  1. Michael Krieg
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  2. Kevin Nelson
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Contributions

M.K. helped design the prototype AUV and derived the force-processing algorithms. K.N. was responsible for all stages of system testing and helped design and validate the custom modular distributed pressure sensory system. K.M. supervised and provided advice for the entire research project, and helped edit and write the paper.

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Correspondence to Kamran Mohseni.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Figures, Discussion, Methods, References

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Experiment with AUV in water tank

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Krieg, M., Nelson, K. & Mohseni, K. Distributed sensing for fluid disturbance compensation and motion control of intelligent robots. Nat Mach Intell 1, 216–224 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-019-0044-1

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